Introduction To Luke

field this is strength darkness falls is is jesus so yes is salvation is i am my savior is this is is this is oh my oh this is this is cheers hallelujah hallelujah is is us oh so is is shall um receive christ he lives is screams oh oh wow um um hey guys yes so um is i can't believe beautiful you if if you trust my sisters what do you say wow okay foreign oh um is um is churches foreign is she's guilty this is jesus christ [Music] oh oh oh um yes jesus jesus hope these notes come out [Music] good morning everyone good morning and happy mother's day to all the mothers out there this morning if you're next to your mother give them a nice big hug it's an honor and a joy to watch your faithfulness to the lord and to your families and i just want to encourage you moms this morning most of your work as mom goes unseen from tantrums diapers putting your kids to bed being there with your kids dealing with your husbands doing side hustles having days where you get to bed and you don't know how you had the strength to get there or if you'll even have it to get there tomorrow and all the while trying to find space in your day to have time with the lord and have some sanity most of it just goes unseen but be encouraged you are doing a good job and even on those days where it doesn't seem like it hear this promise from god's word in philippians 4 19 and my god will supply every need of yours according to his riches and glory in christ jesus this promise includes you moms i hope you find encouragement in this verse and to the body of believers this morning moms are a gift given to us from the lord so all the praises we have for our moms the mothers of our children and the moms around us that lead us to praise him even more for giving us such great gifts would you stand and worship him this morning for he alone is so worthy of our praise so [Music] the father of kindness you have poured out grace you brought me out of darkness you have filled me with peace mercy you're my hell in time lord i can't help but see [Music] you are [Music] faithful forever [Music] all your promises beautiful [Music] you pull me from the ashes you have broken every curse please redeemer you lord i can't help but see faithful you are faithful forever you will be faithful you are all your promises are yesterday amen all your promises are yes [Music] you are faithful forever you will be faithful you are all your promises yes amen [Music] all your promises yes [Music] and now we're rest can you promises my confidence is your faithfulness i will rest in your promises my confidence [Music] my confidence [Music] is [Music] faithful you are faithful forever [Music] all your promises yes [Music] forever you will be faithful [Music] all your promises yes [Music] in christ alone my hope is found he is [Music] of peace sees [Music] in christ [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] they're in the ground his body lay light of the world by darkness [Music] and as he stands in victory [Music] singing is [Music] oh this is [Music] is [Music] [Music] what is our hope in life and death christ alone christ alone what is [Music] let our souls to him belong who holds our days within his head what comes apart [Music] and what will keep us [Music] oh [Music] christ our hope in life [Music] so god is good where is [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] our open mind [Music] you may be seated for a time of lament now i'll tell you uh it's probably at least three years in a row that this has happened where i'm up here on mother's day and josh asks me to issue the lament over mother's day and every year i cry so we'll see if i can uh can guide us through this this morning we have a lot to be thankful for on mother's day and there are a lot of wonderful beautiful relationships with moms there are a lot of people who have joy in their children but there also is a time for us to recognize loss feelings of shame sometimes this is a day that brings heartache and the church doesn't always do a great job of entering into the weight of these realities but the beauty is that the gospel and the scripture doesn't shy away from these harsh realities and the effects of sin in our world and as a church we shouldn't either so some have lost a mother whether it was natural time you just missed your mom or maybe it was a time that was too soon maybe you feel the weight the shame of infertility um maybe you are feeling the pain of miscarriage and loss maybe you're a child with a strained relationship with your own mom a lot of these realities remind us that sin still has its effects in this world and days like today can be bring pain and shame and tears for many women and even sons and as a church um just like we rejoice for the good mothers that god has given us we also want to lament with those who are hurting today romans 12 15 paul says rejoice with those who are rejoicing and mourn with those who mourn so we're going to rejoice for the good mothers that god has given us we are also going to mourn with those who are hurting on mother's day follow along as we read this prayer and read aloud the underlying portion with me oh lord stir up our hunger and thirst after heaven above here we can have the world there we shall have you in christ here is a life of longing and prayer there is assurance without suspicion asking without refusal here are gross comforts more burden than benefit there is joy without sorrow comfort without suffering love without unfaithfulness rest without weariness help us to know that heaven is all peace where error pride rebellion passion raise no head help us to know that heaven is all joy the end of believing fasting praying mourning humbling watching fearing weariness and lead us to it soon let's take some time to rejoice and also to mourn this morning heavenly father what a good and beautiful gift you have given us in women the way that you have designed the woman's body her mind her heart and her passions god we thank you um that is a special and unique thing to bear children we also that with the weight of sin there comes pain and childbearing there comes postpartum depression there comes loss there comes waiting there comes strained relationships all of these things we know because of the sin that exists in this world we want to take time and mourn and lament that we don't get to enjoy what motherhood should be perfectly but one day we will get to experience that because you are good and and you will call us to perfect peace in you and we know that we can rest in the joy that you bring weather today is happy and filled with fun and delight in where our lives are with our moms or with our children or whether today is heavy and there's shame or fear or regret or sadness you are present you are the fullness of joy and we can trust and rest in you let me give this an each day to you i pray amen amen well good morning church at this time we're going to go ahead and dismiss the three to five year olds uh to their class for today and uh for the rest of us today we are starting uh the book of luke um and so we're gonna be in this we're gonna be walking through luke for honestly probably about two years uh i think is is kind of the number that we're gonna put on it uh one because we've already walked through acts which was also authored by luke and we were in it for about two years and so that's probably going to be the the mo for us here but this is going to be a great time that we just walked through this this entire book this entire narrative and so if you've got your bible and you're going to open them up to luke 1 we're going to be in verses one through four today one through four and as you're turning there i want to go ahead and uh and just pray for our our time together in the word father god we begin by thanking you that jesus came that jesus lived that jesus died that jesus rose and that luke faithfully wrote this orderly account on the facts about who jesus is what he said and what he did holy spirit we we invite you to take the scriptures which you have inspired to be written to illuminate our understanding and to transform our lives we thank you for seasoned mothers new mothers mothers to be and future mothers who are in the waiting we thank you and we ask all these things in your great name amen all right as you can tell i also am still kind of recovering from an illness this last week and so i'm nasally so you'll just have to get over it but uh but yes i am nasally so anyways luke one one through four um we're just gonna dive straight into it inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us it seemed good to me also having followed all things closely for some time past to write an orderly account for you most excellent theophilus that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught all right so that's one long sentence that we will be looking at today and if you are taking notes i'm going to give you kind of the outline that we're going to be covering and so i want to show you four introductions i want to show you three investigations i want to show you two recipients and then i want to show you one purpose all right that's kind of how we're going to start this off alright so there's going to be four introductions three investigations two recipients and one purpose for this first initial sentence right out of the gate and so beginning with the four introductions i want to introduce you to luke as a book all right so let me start by introducing to you the gospel of luke the book in the bible there are in fact four gospels uh there are matthew mark luke and john each is essentially a biographical sketch of jesus and they're all true emphasizing different aspects and facts of jesus's person and his work and so matthew was written to those who are jewish in background mark was written to those who are romans john was written to those who were greek and luke is written to those who are gentile or simply not used to a jewish background of reading the bible or going to synagogue or going to the temple or things like that so they do tell the same story of jesus but each in their kind of own way and what we see in luke's gospel is that it is the longest of the four gospels it has 1151 verses in it and of those 1151 verses 568 verses are literally just the words of jesus and so luke is just quoting nearly half of the book is just quoting verbatim the words of jesus and what he actually said and so to read luke and i want you to read luke as we continue to walk through this that's a prayer of mine is for you to just read luke for yourself to read luke takes on average for the average reader about two hours sitting down and reading it from from beginning to end and so what i would love for us to do practically speaking if you were to take 15 to 20 minutes a day just 15 to 20 minutes a day you could read through the entire book of luke in a week sitting or in a week's time and so if you were to do that and just commit 15 to 20 minutes a day just reading through the book of luke by the time we end this series you will have read the book of luke nearly a hundred times give or take a few that's if you just do it 15 to 20 minutes a day you'll read it about a hundred times by the time that we finish this series and i want you to do that because i want you to get to know this book i want you to get to know it i want you to get to know the purpose behind it the details within it i want this book to become a friend of yours and if you're kind of thinking like that sounds like a lot of reading like i don't know if i could read it a hundred times in the next two years or so uh i it reminds me of a friend of mine that i had down in tennessee and i say friend of mine he was a much older man in our church who is well into his 80s but i remember talking to him and just kind of hearing a little bit more about his story and one of the things was in his story his salvation story was he was a salesman back in the day and he was in san francisco and he was staying in a hotel and he had a playboy magazine with him and he was going to set it down on the nightstand and when instead of setting it on the nightstand he was like you know what i've got a friend coming over maybe i should put it in the drawer and so he opens the drawer and there was a bible inside the drawer and so he was like huh interesting let me set the playboy magazine next to the bible and that kind of just stirred something in him in that moment and so later that evening when he opened the drawer he chose to read the bible instead of the playboy magazine and so he opened it up and he just began reading and he even told me he was like that night when i started reading through the book of luke he's like i met jesus and jesus saved me and i was like that's that's fantastic that's amazing he was like i remember specifically it being friday the 13th and for whatever reason he was like because it was friday the 13th jesus saved me i committed to reading 13 chapters of the bible every day and and so you fast forward 40 50 years he stayed true to that commitment to where he actually told me and if you actually read 13 chapters of the bible each day you'll read through the bible like front to cover genesis to revelation you'll read the whole thing in three months if you read 13 chapters a day and so he has read like and this was actually before we left to go plant in miami i had asked him i was like how many times have you read through the bible and he was like actually i've just finished up my 342nd time reading the entire bible front to back i'm like that's phenomenal all right like there's you can do it all right we're just saying 15 20 minutes a day read through the book of luke you'll be able to do this all right and it's and i'll tell you this that will probably be the primary thing that transforms our church over the next couple of years is just doing a commitment like this a spiritual discipline like this and so that's what we want you to do we want you to mark notes we want you to highlight it we want you to mark it up make it a friend get to know luke's gospel so that's luke as the gospel luke as an author second introduction let me introduce you to luke as an author as we read his introductory words you might notice that he doesn't tell us his name right out of the gate so how do we know that he wrote this book as you read through many books in the new testament they literally start off with who wrote it you know especially the apostle paul that's his mo whenever he opens a letter or starts writing a letter he says hi i'm the apostle paul this is who i am this is who i'm writing to he addresses it and addresses himself within it and so luke doesn't do that but what we do know is that luke wrote both the book of luke and acts and specifically in acts we see that there are moments throughout acts where the author of acts starts saying these things like we we went here we went there we saw this so he's giving first person um he's revealing the fact that he was there and engaging in these travels and these um journeys with the apostle paul later to mention then that the apostle paul actually says that luke was with me and that luke is the one recording these things and so we we know that luke authored acts and then with him authoring acts we know that acts also begins with two theophilus the exact same introduction as luke has and so theologians have been able to put these two books together as literally a prequel and a sequel written by the same guy with the same greek style of writing that is impeccable i mean luke is as we'll see here in a minute uh very educated but he has incredible greek and and the themes and the structure of both luke and axe and even the same themes that he draws on with the role of the holy spirit in both of them are very similar to the point that they're able to see that these two books were authored by the same person and because we know that acts was authored by luke we are also then able to see that the book of luke was authored by him additionally all of the early church fathers in the second and third centuries ones like justin martyr and irenaeus and tertullian and clement of alexandria all agreed and all said that luke wrote the book of luke and that he also wrote the book of acts and he actually wrote these around 62 a.

d and 63 a. d which is about 30 years after jesus's death burial and ascension his resurrection and ascension and so this is a very strategic window in which luke has in order to record these based on what he is kind of drawing on his purpose for writing these another thing about this author that you don't typically hear or know is a lot of times when it comes to the new testament who gets attributed with contributing the most to the new testament paul absolutely why because he authored 13 some argue 14 letters or books of the new testament all right the reason why there's discrepancy is because no one really knows who authored hebrews some say it was paul if it was paul then he wrote 14 of the 27 books of the new testament however in verses and sentences luke and acts contribute more than the 13 or 14 letters of the new testament so this author actually provides to us more of the new testament than any other writer that is actually out there so that's just something to know like paul is a guy who loves words he's very verbose he uses a lot of them to say he takes his time like that's my kind of guy is one who uses a lot of words when he gives his message he doesn't give you the cliff notes version he gives a lot of historical details behind it so that is luke as an author what about luke as a man i want to introduce you to him as a man he's probably not a jew didn't grow up going to temple and sabbath keeping and going to synagogue and reading the old testament and waiting for the messiah his name is a gentile name which means he's non-jewish by background and heritage luke or lucas in its original language is a gentile name so if you're like me he didn't grow up going to church he didn't grow up meeting with god's people and reading god's word he grew up in some other sort of home in that way but he's mentioned expressly three times in the new testament and he's referred to in an amazing way each of the times he's paid one of the highest compliments in the new testament paul says on one occasion in second timothy 4 11 luke alone is with me luke alone is with me this is a time when the apostle paul is imprisoned and if you know anything about the apostle paul like danger follows him all right so he's constantly in danger constantly being shipwrecked constantly being bitten by snakes constantly uh being stoned constantly being lashed out to you know he's he's always in danger and at one point he literally says like everyone's gone like everyone's abandoned me except for luke like luke is still with me and so i can just imagine this type of loyal friend who is constantly with him who's visiting him in the prison saying like paul how are you doing like how are you doing like what can i do how can i pray how can i tend to you right now like i'm as we'll see here in colossians 4 14 it actually gives him the title of his profession it says that he is a physician who needed a physician more than the apostle paul and and so he's possibly also his personal physician but we know luke is a doctor because of what it says in colossians 4 14.

he's a medical doctor and i know some of you are wondering like what is the role of of science and medicine and in like the christian faith luke is a great example like sometimes goofy christians will say things like you don't need to go to the doctor you don't need medical insurance all you need to do is pray and have faith and trust god and he'll heal you and then they'll go to places like luke and say see like jesus healed people and they'll go to acts and say see the holy spirit heals people and does miracles and the irony there is that both of those were authored by a medical doctor a medical professional bizarre oversight on their point the doctor's point was was not to mention that you don't need a doctor but the doctor's point is to mention that jesus is the great physician and sometimes he does miraculously heal and other times he works through other physicians that's why with kelsey's cancer like we asked you as a church to pray for her and also we scheduled surgeries and treatments because we believe in that as well like we we know that the lord has skilled people in those ways in our harbor network family of churches this week i got a message from one of our newest church planters uh that his name is brett johnson and his wife is katie johnson we got like an emergency kind of like hey you need to pray for katie johnson like now this was like on on wednesday she had a headache on tuesday and really wasn't sure what was going on and so they eventually went in and did some scans and found that she had a brain aneurysm and they were going to be scheduling like emergency surgery on thursday and so on wednesday the message went out like everyone pray uh we're praying for like the best results that god would heal her but even through the surgeries there's going to be like a a smaller invasive surgery to start off with on thursday and then a lengthier longer one down the road as well but the initial one they knew there were going to be complications of probably loss of hearing possible seizures several other things that were going to come on so we were just we were just praying and so on thursday she goes in and she has one more scan before they actually go into the surgery and they do the scan no aneurysm like just no aneurysm they're like we we it's just i love those moments where you've got the smartest people in the room who have no idea what to say about it like that's a beautiful thing and so god in some moments goes the longer route of of healing you through surgeries and treatments and whatever it might look like and then there are other moments where god just says i'm just going to do it like i'm not going to put you through those things i'm just going to i'm just going to miraculously heal you right now and that's what he did for katie johnson this week and it was a beautiful beautiful thing and so that's how god works at times and so luke was a man who studied medicine and science and was formally educated and that's what honestly like that's what christians need to do like we we should be educated like it's okay to be educated we don't like to live by faith does not mean that you just dumb down yourself and you rely on god for everything like that's not what it means to live by faith and that's not who luke was in his in his role um you may be graduating middle school medical school and in the midst of residency or practicing already and we would say to that praise god like praise god i think what the world needs more are like holy doctors who pray for you like the combination of the two like we're gonna do everything we can to treat you and at the same time pray for you honestly for us like that that has been the healies for us in this season is as we've been walking through our treatments we're also kind of going to them and saying like can you interpret this medical jargon for us like can you help us identify god what's going on here like the pictures we send what is this what's going on here and and them just being able to say like from a medical professional standpoint this is what's going on and then at the same time to say we're going to pray for you we're going to pray for you like that's a beautiful thing and that's the kind of person that luke is here in the scriptures especially in this time where he's a learned educated man in a day where honestly maybe only 10 percent of the people are actually literate are actually literate and so luke is is an interesting case in what we typically don't see when we're walking through the scriptures we typically show how peter and the disciples these fishermen who are as they say uneducated men are doing are changing the world well then that kind of then begs the question well what about those who are educated can they change the world like can they offer anything into this and luke shows us that that absolutely is a possibility to be able to use your intellect to be able to use your education to be able to use your skills and your life skills to be able to serve christ and the cause of christ in everything so that's luke as a man i want to show you luke as a saint luke as a saint i'm not going like catholic here like it's like saint luke you know kind of i'm saying like luke as a believer luke as a christian what was spoken of him because he doesn't say anything about himself but what was spoken of him now outside of his profession profession and authorship we don't know a lot about luke but there was one thing that we came across or that i came across in studying and this is actually an ancient fragment that was found on a commentary about a hundred years after luke's life so about a hundred years after his life he wrote he authored his book there's a commentary written on his book and so this is pulled out of that ancient uh commentary on luke and if you were to look it up it's literally luke ancient commentary on luke like that's just what it's titled don't know who authored it but that's what it says this is the only thing that we have kind of a snapshot into his life it says indeed luke was an antiochian syrian which just means he lived in antioch or was from antioch that's he talks about that and i kind of find that interesting because in acts 13 especially when the church literally just shifted operations from jerusalem to antioch to where antioch became like the center of church planting it became the center of the gospel it became the center of the movement of really getting the gospel uh just dispersed out everywhere and so that's where it's saying luke is is ultimately from he's an antiochian syrian it also says that he's a doctor by profession and a disciple of the apostles so luke tells us that he was not an eyewitness but he was trained by those who were he was discipled by those who were so luke never met jesus face to face but he met those who met jesus face to face that he was discipled by those luke is is essentially saying he's kind of like us he is a follower of the followers of jesus all right so that's something that's good for us to know because again this is a guy who's not going based off of thomas who literally stuck his hands in jesus's wounds he's not someone who was there when jesus was actually crucified now he was alive during the time but he was not a believer and not around when that was going on i would almost say that he probably if he is from antioch never even heard of jesus until the gospel actually got to antioch and then he actually became a believer at that point but again this is conjecture this is outside of scripture a disciple of apostles and then says later however he followed paul until his martyrdom again that kind of goes back to that one verse in second timothy 4 11 where he's like luke alone is with me this is a loyal friend who was with him until paul literally died and then the next line says serving the lord blamelessly like just make god say that of all of us right interesting enough this ancient fragment of commentary also says that he died at the age of 84.

i mean like very specific that he died at the age of 84. now that's twice as long as the life expectancy of guys in that day so if you were to ask him like how good of a doctor was he he was a good doctor all right like he not only cared for others but cared for himself in such a way that he lived to the age of 84. like that's good in our day right and so for him to be able to if again if that's true for him to be able to live to that day that's that's amazing and died at the age of 84 and i love this line full of the holy spirit full of the holy spirit man that god would allow us to live in such a way that long after we're gone hundreds of years after we're gone that whatever is recorded of our life that it would say that that they serve the lord blamelessly into old age full of the holy spirit full of the holy spirit and honestly like out of the introductions that's that's my hope and prayer for us as we walk through the book of luke and as we see all that's recorded around the life of jesus christ his life his death his resurrection his ascension all of his teachings all of his miracles all of his work that as we see that that it would so change us and transform us that we would serve him blamelessly and be full of the holy spirit so those are the four introductions let me show you now the three investigations that luke dove into and these will these will move a little bit quicker but i want to walk you through verses one through three he says this inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us it seemed good to me also having followed all things closely for some time past to write an orderly account so luke uses three primary ways to to essentially collect his data to conduct his investigation to organize his research and he says that he gained his information about jesus that came together as the gospel of luke from these three sources and so many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us that's that's written documents okay and then just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses he's interviewing eye witnesses so written documents eyewitnesses and ministers of the word who have delivered them to us so that's the oral tradition that we'll get to here in a minute so there are three ways that he gathers his information it's just a massive amount of work it's a massive amount of time it's a massive amount of of money as well as we'll see here in a minute but the first one i want to look at is just the oral tradition because i think these kind of each um elevate in in the importance of them oral tradition in a day when again many of them were illiterate and especially in the rural areas perhaps only five to ten percent of the people were actually literate and that's of the men most of the women were illiterate because they were not allowed to study in that regard someone would be designated as the leader and sort of the curator of that place for the person or the person the facts and the data of the history so there is always someone who is essentially like you are the person who's going to pass down all of the knowledge that we have and you're going to be the curator of it you're going to be the historian you're going to be the theologian you're going to be each of these things and and they would then pass those down and so what he would do is he would go and he would interview each of those oral traditionals like he would go and ask them i need all the information that you have that you're passing down to these communities i need to know what you know and so will you please deliver them to me as well so he's off like he's walking through that secondly he says that other things are written down by this point he has the gospel of matthew that's already been written he has the gospel of mark that has already been written paul has already written some of his letters of the new testament that are ascribed to him and there are also others who have probably had someone transcribe if they were illiterate or write down themselves their testimonies testimonies like the jesus healed me jesus cast out a demon out of me i saw him risen from from the death i i was there for a miracle it's all true it's fact it happened so he's going and just compiling everything that's written or he's going into these cities and sitting down with the written documents and taking notes and making notes or he's looking for the copier and scanning them if obviously that's not true but that's exactly what he's doing is he's gathering the written documents in order to compile for himself a document something that he can reference and then thirdly he compiles all of this and he meets with the eyewitnesses so you got to understand that he's going to the eyewitnesses he's going to hey peter like you you were there what was it like going to to jesus brothers james and jude hey i know it says that jesus never sinned you were with him and if anybody would know whether he sinned or not it's going to be you all right because you're his brothers he's going to marry mary did did you know that your baby boy would someday no i'm not going to go there but what like it was it like the song like did you actually know that you were going to birth god like do was that was that on your mind when the angel showed up like how did it go when you told joseph hey your virgin pregnant girlfriend um yeah something interesting happened like how did that go like he's he's interviewing the eye witnesses that are going that have met jesus and know jesus and so this is years this is massive amounts of money this is him going from town to town putting the entire narrative together talking to the eyewitnesses taking the written documents listening to the oral tradition and luke has decided it's time it's time to write it all down though there are other gospels like matthew and mark luke feels like he has something to contribute something to contribute to the narrative and so he records the orderly account and he addresses it to what i believe are two recipients all of these investigations the research the compiling of documents and written orderly accounts are addressed to most excellent theophilus most excellent theophilus i tried pulling a last-minute hail mary and changing ezra's name to theophilus um it was either like the week of or we might have been in the hospital i don't remember but kelsey shot it down like immediately and uh and i'm now thinking knowing ezra for six years that it would have been perfect because he thinks he's most excellent in everything um so i i just want to go back and say that i was prophetic in that moment and and knew what he should have been called but anyways this is written to most excellent theophilus why all the trouble why why do all this work for this one guy because again you got to talk the largest contribution to the new testament the book of luke and the book of acts written to one person why go through all of this first of all i just think it's stunning and wonderful that the longest book of the new testament is written to one person i i really do find that stunning like does god love the world yes does god love all the nations yes does god love cities and communities yes does god love individuals yes like yes he does he this is not just something where he deals with churches he also deals with individuals he is personal with individuals and so i just love that this is kind of pulling this out where a lot of like the letters in that paul writes it's like to the churches in galatia you know so that's like well all right he's talking to a bunch of people all right or to the church in ephesus well this is a group of people so this might not necessarily be specific for me where this is theophilus i'm going to record an orderly account of jesus and theophilus i'm going to record an orderly account of the church all right god's two greatest loves jesus in the church like i mean that's this is what he is writing to and he's writing them or is what he's writing about and he's writing them to theopolis so who is he and why is this such an important thing now there's conjecture here some believe that he's possibly a jewish priest others believe that he could be paul's lawyer and paul is is asking um luke who is educated or articulate hey you need to get all of this information to theophilus because he's my lawyer like again that's some people that believe that as well i think personally um that that the the the weightiest and the one that makes the most sense is that he is actually a roman governmental official and the reason why we land there is ultimately because we say we i'm not saying we like i uh the reason why i think i land there is because of his title most excellent it's actually mentioned multiple times at the end of of of acts again luke writing it that he is talking to roman governmental officials and he refers to them as most excellent and so by giving him that title i believe that pulls in his his his status or his title of a roman governmental official again i think it's roman in the sense and not jewish because of theophilus's name as well that it is actually a gentile name not a jewish name that means simply lover of god or one who loves god and so i believe he's writing this to this new converted or newly converted roman governmental official who now loves god and because he loves god in his position and in his title there's a lot at risk here there's a lot at risk and so he needs to know for sure is jesus legit is the church legit are all of these things actually true because if it is it's going to have implications for my entire life for my entire life and so i believe like that's that's that's why this is happening i'll show you a little bit more of that in a minute now i said two recipients all right so i said theopolis is one of the recipients that is obvious in the scriptures but other theologians have also pulled in the idea of lover of god or theophilus as a general term for anybody who is a lover of god or might become a lover of god so the way that i look at that is we can pull in two things yes absolutely just like galatians is written to the churches in galatia it's not directly written to the district church in indianapolis but is galatians the book written to the churches in galatia beneficial for us as the word of god here in indianapolis absolutely same here in the sense of luke and acts written to theophilus who is the lover of god it is directly written to him but indirectly written to us for those who are lovers of god or might become lovers of god in order to be able to see the acts of jesus and the acts of the church and so i think absolutely not only is it intended for him but it is intended for us under the inspired word of god and under god's ultimate plan of getting his word out to the nations and beyond so those are the two recipients and the last one and again i think the the point for the book of acts or the book of luke the point the one purpose is that you may have certainty like that's what he's that's what he's essentially telling to theophilus i'm i'm writing this orderly account i'm giving you the the the three investigations here's where i compiled all the data from and not only that i'm writing it straight to you and i'm writing it so that you may have certainty that you may have certainty why does theopolis need certainty and assurance again he's probably a new convert to christianity here he's a wealthy prominent affluent significant man who becomes a christian and what he's wondering is is it really true because he has a lot to lose in publicly declaring himself to be christian because in that day caesar was lord caesar was lord so so to say anything else would be blasphemy against their law and and rightful uh justifiable death for you to not say caesar as lord and to say someone else is lord caesar was lord and so as a christian theophilus would declare not anymore jesus is lord in that day he would say my highest allegiance is to my nation and upon meeting jesus he would have to say no not anymore my highest allegiance is to jesus's kingdom and as a governor he would need to say all religions are welcome the worship of all gods is equal this is where you get the roman god system and now he would say no jesus alone is god and savior so this would get him in great trouble with his boss caesar this would get him fired this could give him lots of legal trouble maybe even imprisoned i mean this could cost him everything because it was not safe to profess jesus as lord it actually wasn't safe to profess that until 325 a.

d when emperor constantine legalized it as the state religion of the roman empire so that's at least that's almost 300 years later and so this is something that's very important for him to have assurance and to have certainty because he knows what's at stake he knows what that cost here and so here's this man wrestling perhaps as some of you are with his faith do i really believe in jesus do i love jesus do i belong to jesus am i willing to go public with this am i willing to say jesus is lord there's a lot at stake and so theophilus actually contracts this out he hires he funds he supports luke a fellow gentile and educated and articulate man who has access to the apostles and the eyewitnesses and the disciples he says luke i need you to go find the truth go get the facts go find out exactly what happened around this man jesus and give me a full report and that's exactly what luke does now why does certainty matter well it matters because of what hebrews 11 1 shows us and this is what i want to close with faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen like that's what faith is faith is two things it's the assurance like i i am sure i am certain of things that i'm hoping for but they've not even not even happened yet it's also the conviction i am convinced of things that i've never seen so theophilus who's not met jesus personally luke who's not met jesus personally at this point they're not walking by sight of jesus they're walking by faith in jesus they were not there and so certainty and this is why i love the book of luke and the book of acts is because it puts us into the category of the author this is a man who who is not just saying like when he at one point says like i disbelieve well his disbelief would not be warranted off of like i was there and experience it and didn't think it was legit like his his disbelief is not similar to judas iscariot who disbelief is just straight out rejection like this is someone who might have said i disbelieve but i actually want to make sure and so instead of just disbelieving and throwing it off like today it would be just to me honestly it's just silly for someone when they first hear jesus or first hear the story of jesus to just say i just i just don't believe it's true i'm sorry are you an eyewitness like did you read the written documents did you talk to mary did you hear the oral traditions were you there so don't just like half-heartedly just say i just don't believe it and that's why the book of luke is such a gift to us by god because it's from someone who did the work that we right now don't have the opportunity to go and do he had a strategic window of time to be able to provide the credibility that he needed to author a book inspired by god which is there's written documents eyewitnesses i might not have seen them but they did and i wrote down their stories and that's able to grant for us by the grace of god to grant for us certainty and assurance and a conviction that is unwavering that is our faith that is our faith and honestly this is again my hope for us is that as we walk through this it does one primary thing is that as we are filled with the holy spirit it is building and strengthening that faith it's building and strengthening that faith because you want to know what kind of people change the world the kind of people who change the world are the kind of people who have an unwavering faith and conviction that jesus is who he says he is that he did what he says he's what he said he did and because of that i'm going to go live my life this way i'm going to live my life this way and the world is going to be changed by it the world's going to be changed by it one of our church planting networks the summit collaborative has a vision to plant a thousand churches in a generation a thousand churches in a generation and this was something that came out of j.

d greer's mouth about 20 years ago when when he kind of started pastoring the summit church in denver in denver in raleigh durham and he was just up on stage at one moment and he just said kind of just flew out of his mouth and he said apparently a bunch of their vision just happens when he's off the cuff and it flows out of his mouth and at one point he said we're going to plant a thousand churches in in a generation so he's thinking the next 40 50 years we're going to plant a thousand churches and it took them at least four to five years to even plant the first church just one church took them like four to five years now the summit church by itself has planted 502 churches 502 churches in 20 years so as he shared with us last week when i was out there he's like we're right on track we're right on track but at the same time it has become exponential to where they'll probably blow that number out of the water and and that kind of got me thinking like again this this is a church that now they they are a mega church i mean they're running fourteen thousand people multiple locations etc tons of resources i'm not going to say that that makes it easier to plant a church but it makes it easier to plant a church it does what i was kind of thinking for us and i know like for the other elders in the room i haven't really talked about this with them so it is what it is i would love for us as a church to commission a thousand people in our generation now when i say commission a thousand people in our generation that might be full-time overseas missions that might be to go plant another church that might be in a full-time type of missionary position here in indianapolis that might be on staff in our church as we continue to grow and whatever it might look like that could also be short-term missions overseas but the the main thing is that as we see luke record this in the spread of the gospel because it's not just waiting to acts and seeing the spread of the gospel there the gospel spreads through the life of jesus christ that we're going to see and that even in his three years of ministry he's commissioning the disciples to do things as we are being filled with the holy spirit through this process and as our faith is being strengthened through this process i want us to be trained and equipped to be able to go and to be commissioned and to be able to do for others what luke has done here in gathering the information being trained and equipped to be able to orderly write out the gospel message and to be able to deliver it to someone else so that they may have assurance of their faith to be able to then make the decisions in their life that they need to make for the cause of christ like that's what the bible is calling us to do and i love that luke being a medical professional a doctor was willing to not let that be the only thing that defined his life but leveraged it in order to continue spreading and advancing the gospel in his life and we all have that opportunity to do that whether you're a teacher whether you're a stay-at-home mom whether you're a social worker uh whether you fly around in helicopters like whatever it is that you do we get to leverage what god has provided for us for the sake of the gospel and the spread of jesus christ that's what luke did and that's the opportunity that we have and so right now you might be thinking like well that sounds great for for some my prayer and my hope is that it is for all of us in this room for all of us to be built up in that way over the next couple of years as we come to this time of communion i actually want to jump ahead to luke 22.

this doesn't mean we're like skipping the other 21 verses or 21 chapters so don't don't think that but i want you to see his his orderly account of this last supper as we are invited to this same meal he says this in luke 22 14-20 when the hour came he reclined at table and the apostles with him and he said to them i have earnestly desired to eat this passover with you before i suffer for i tell you i will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of god what jesus is saying there is is at the actual last supper that's the last time that jesus partook of the meal that we partake of every week that was the last time because what he wants to do is is as the gospel spreads over the next two thousand years he will not enter in and celebrate this meal with us until all of the believers have become believers and have been called home like he's not leaving anybody out so he's saying i i will not partake of this again until it is all fulfilled in the kingdom of god and he took a cup and when he had given thanks he said take this and divide it among yourselves for i tell you that from now on i will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of god comes and he took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them saying this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me and likewise the cup after they had eaten saying this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood now they barely knew what was happening in that moment when he was giving them this this illustration of what was about to happen at his death that his body was about to be broken like the bread and that his blood was about to be shed like the cup that was poured out and the way that he references himself throughout we'll see is that he references himself as the bread of life like if you need to be full and you need to be filled up and you need to have substance and you need to have something that sustains you through the weariness he's saying it's me it's me when you find yourselves wrestling when you find yourselves just tired when you find yourselves weary and emotionally exhausted and whatever it might be when you find yourselves wondering whether or not it's true or whatever like when you find yourself just struggling through jesus is saying i'm giving you a meal that is a symbol and illustration of what you get access to all the time like this this meal he later says like it doesn't fill you up eat at home for that but when you partake of this meal this fills you up spiritually this strengthens you to do the work that i'm calling you to do you're going to need this energy drink you're going to need this protein bar and these two things are going to provide for you the fuel that you need and that's what we celebrate when we come to communion every single week that's what we commemorate that's what we remember is that we're not just looking back and saying thank you for your sacrifice on the cross to forgive me of my sins but we're also drawing on that the energy that we need in our spiritual walk to be able to take that message to those who are dying and going to hell right now and we share the good news with them so that they get to be able to come into the family as well and have certainty that jesus is who he says he is so let's go ahead and stand together if you don't have the elements i invite you to go ahead and go back and grab them so as we walk through this this book of luke it just reminds me of the thankfulness that we have for a god who has inspired these men 2000 years ago to do the work i mean this was this was no small task but to do this work so that we today followers of the followers of the followers of the followers of jesus that we have access to be able to see what they saw and to be able to read what they read and be able to witness what they witnessed and jesus provides this for us in this way he took the bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and he gave it to them and he said this is my body which is for you do this in remembrance of me and likewise the cup after they had eaten sang this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood do this in remembrance of me let's be filled up with this meal so that we can pour ourselves out as we continue to advance the gospel [Music] blessed assurance jesus is mine oh of glory divine air salvation purchase of god born of his spirit washed in his blood my story this is my song praising my savior all the day long this is my story this [Music] all is love [Music] perfect submission perfect now burst on my side [Music] angels bring from above mercy of love this is my story this is my song praising my savior all the day long this is my story this is [Music] perfect submission all is [Music] [Music] watching and waiting [Music] filled with his goodness lost [Music] this is my story this is my song praising my savior [Music] this is my song praising my savior all the day long let's sing this is my story this is my story this is my song praising my savior all the day long this is my story this is my song praising my savior all the day long [Music] god we thank you that we're reminded this morning that we have the assurance of what we cannot see but god you have made it so clear and so visible we thank you for the book of luke and just we pray that as we continue to walk through that that you would just open our eyes just to the greatness and the wonder of jesus in his life and and what that means for us now as we get to live and walk and god may you just stir up the assurance and the confidence and the conviction that what we're singing about what we're reading about is true and god maybe we just get to share that with the world as we walk out it's in your lovely name that we pray alongside amen germans as well as the hills and dedicating their children to the church and our church to their lives share the gospel with them and celebrate that with us spoil what ebenezer means i'm going to leave that to the worship night but i love that word and i love just the reminder of who god is so we are going to praise him singing songs and coming together as a as a body to be able to do this that week will actually be a week where we're going to have all the community groups gathered together so instead of community groups will come and worship the lord the week before that will be the last as communities to be able to go through certain questions after that and after the night of memories there will be times where groups can meet but i'm telling you guys can't hang out and be in community with one another but it won't be as formal as we normally have throughout the year i have been told i'm just going to speak for greg if you don't want to have a community group and you want to come to his house and swim in this pool it's wide open so you can come and join us on thursday nights as well swimming is cooler in the summertime but formal community groups will not be meeting during the summer and then finally for all of the moms as well as the ones who are born whether it is we are celebrating you guys this morning and all the gifts that god has given us through you and a small token of that celebration can be found out here we have crumbled cookies so for all of the mom and women those are your gifts first and foremost and then for anybody else who might have some leftovers but you have to wait okay so um you guys feel free to grab those they're a small gift of what you mean to all us you guys are just going through everything else oh bye